Ex-cop on trial over return of illegal gun to suspect

August 12, 2009

Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg told a police detective to give back an illegal handgun seized from a gang member who had used it to threaten police, a Cook County jury heard today.

Telling the detective that convicted drug dealer Anthony Reynolds was a "good guy" who he had "known for years," Kellogg asked that charges against Reynolds be dropped and the evidence against him returned, prosecutors said as the trial of former Harvey Police Detective Hollis Dorrough began.

Kellogg is not charged with any crime and has always maintained he did nothing wrong.

But Dorrough is charged with four counts of obstruction of justice, three counts of official misconduct and perjury. Prosecutors allege he followed Kellogg's orders and secretly returned the handgun to Reynolds' father in a clandestine gas station meeting in October 2005.

Reynolds pointed the gun at two other Harvey officers during an arrest Oct. 18, 2005, but the case against him almost collapsed the following summer when it was discovered that the .45-caliber Remington was missing from evidence, Assistant State's Atty. Brian Holmes said.

DeBois testified that after he angrily refused Kellogg's request to let Reynolds go, Dorrough was put in charge of the investigation and given the gun.

Kellogg later called Dorrough into a meeting with Reynolds, Parnell and several high-ranking police officers, where he asked Dorrough "whether we can do anything for Anthony," and then told him to "make sure he gets his property back," according to Dorrough's grand jury testimony, which was read in court Wednesday.

Dorrough admitted giving the gun back to Parnell, saying he feared he would be fired by Kellogg or "face other consequences," according to grand jury testimony and interviews with police read in court.

Dorrough denies all charges because he was "just following orders," his attorney Thomas Brandstrader said in his opening argument.

But prosecutors claim that Dorrough knew the mayor had no legal authority to give him orders and that he should have stood up to him as DeBois had.

The arresting officers were "serving and protecting the citizens of Harvey" when they arrested Reynolds, but Dorrough was only "serving and protecting his own interests" when he gave the gun back, Holmes said.